NY Jets: It is time to part ways with Geno Smith

The NY Jets are going to have a big decision to make on whether or not to bring back quarterback Geno Smith next season.

Geno Smith has been a huge head case for the Jets due to the the way he has handled himself. It is time to part ways with him because the Jets have a young quarterback in Bryce Petty that could be the future of the team. Throughout his young career, Smith had struggled and his numbers have dropped which you don’t want to see as a fan.

He had struggled with the offense because of not being to able to understand the style of it as it was totally different from his college career. Smith had performed in a air raid passing offense when he was in college and when he was drafted, he had to learn on the fly a run-oriented style offense.

The total yards in his second season dropped a significant amount as it went from 3,046 in 2013 to 2,525 in 2014 which is 521 yards in total difference. As a quarterback, you would question a lot of decisions he had made on the field and you wondered as a fan if he had prepared well enough early on in the week. From his body language at times, it seemed as if he didn’t care about helping his teammates or he didn’t care too much about winning football games. I also think that his former coach Rex Ryan was too lenient, and let Smith do whatever he wanted.

One game that most Jets fans would remember is when they went on the road to play the San Diego Chargers and Smith was late to meetings because he got confused with the time change. I bet I can speak for most Jets fans that it irritated them because you knew he wasn’t taking things seriously enough and he didn’t show team leadership. That particular day he performed horrifically, and the team was beaten bad as they went into halftime down twenty one points.

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The overall team morale was at an all-time low just because of the way he did things. He made it impossible for the Jets to come back and try to win the game because that was a huge deficit to makeup.

At the halftime of that game, Smith and the Jets’ offense only managed to produce 60 yards in total. I supported the decision of benching him but instead of being just for one game I would have done it for multiple games.

When watching the games you would get frustrated for how he would worry about what the fans were saying instead of looking at things the coaches were trying to help him fix. In 2014, in Week 4 he received a $12,000 fine for heckling the Detroit fans which as a coach or general manager you can’t accept. Those kind of actions will be caught on camera that many people at home are watching and are embarrassing for the organization in representing them.

I believe they thought he learned his lesson by giving him a fine but we all knew Smith didn’t learn from this. The weeks after his fine, Smith continued to make costly mistakes on the gridiron and threw multiple interceptions. He didn’t play well enough for his team. I think again, if you wanted to teach a lesson to him then he should of been benched and watched from the sideline. In 14 games, Smith threw 13 touchdowns and 13 interceptions, which is not a big improvement.

The following season after the Jets had made changes in hiring a new head coach and new general manager, Smith knew he had to step his game up because things weren’t not going to be easy. His new head coach had been specific in how he wanted to change the mindset of the team and was a no excuse type of coach.

Nov 1, 2015; Oakland, CA, USA; New York Jets quarterback Geno Smith (7) throws a pass against the Oakland Raiders in the third quarter at O.co Coliseum. The Raiders defeated the Jets 34-20. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports

In training camp, Smith had got into a altercation with IK Enemkpali who punched him in the face over something that happened between the two players outside of the football field. Smith ended up suffering a broken jaw and was out for multiple weeks while Enemkpali was released by the Jets. I thought the Jets handled the situation well, but I thought they should of released him as well because of his part in allowing it to escalate to what ended up being his demotion of starting quarterback.

After Geno had the surgery, he was told to take it easy during the recovery process and not to do any football work. Right after surgery, Smith was caught playing catch outside of his house and not recuperating. It had frustrated the Jets and he received a call from the team. Smith returned to the team and had to come in for an injured Ryan Fitzpatrick but Smith didn’t help one bit and showed again, he had no improvement.

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Time will tell in what the Jets will ultimately do with Smith as they hopefully will make the right decision. Even though he didn’t play much last season, Smith didn’t show any improvement whatsoever in making decisions to help the overall benefit of the team.

Overall, I think he is a huge distraction and the organization needs to let him go. Petty was drafted by the Jets in the 2015 NFL Draft and from what I have seen, he has a better chance in succeeding than Smith. Let Petty develop under a veteran quarterback which could help him understand how to approach things that go on in the league. Honestly, it is time for the Jets to continue to get rid of the problems they still have from the past years and move in the right direction.

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